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EU increases aid to Haiti

The European Commission says it will provide Haiti with an additional €3 million to be spent on for food and healthcare, bringing to €8 million the humanitarian aid that it has given this year.

Haiti has been particularly hard hit by the surge in food prices as the price of wheat, rice and other staple crops have nearly doubled over the last year.

The EU’s funds will not be emergency food aid. Instead, the money will be targeted at women and children in rural parts of the country and will be used to improve access to food, healthcare, safe water and sanitation, the Commission said in a statement.

Farmers who have been affected by natural disasters and lack of access to local and national markets will also receive support. In all, the Commission believes the aid will help more than one and a half million Haitians.

The EU’s humanitarian aid to Haiti this year is higher than average. Between 1995 and 2007, it provided a total of €49 million in humanitarian aid.

The cash is being channelled through European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO).

ECHO’s spokesman, Simon Horner, said that the decision to allocate €3 million had been taken following a “needs-based” assessment of the situation on the ground in Haiti conducted in consultation with humanitarian NGOs and UN agencies.

“If the situation were to deteriorate, further needs assessments would be made, which could lead to further sums of money being allocated,” Horner said.

Today’s announcement comes one day after a UN food agency, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), started distributing aid worth €2.6 million to thousands of farmers in Haiti.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and more than 78% of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

Protests over rising prices prompted crowds in the south of the island and Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince to take to the streets in protest in April. Six people died in the ensuing violence, and the demonstrations eventually forced Haiti’s government to step down.

The FAO claims that one in five children in Haiti are chronically undernourished. The Rome-based agency said that the aid – which comes in the form of 600 tonnes of bean, maize and sorghum seeds as well as hoes and machetes – would benefit 70,000 families and help with the current planting season.

But the FAO warned that it would need an extra €41 million over the next three planting seasons in order make serious inroads into tackling Haiti’s food supply problems.